the miles away girl

Not blogging drives me slightly mad.

After coming back from a party in the local pub on Saturday night and having listened to a great deal of karoake of varying quality, (N insisted on singing the only Smiths/Morrissey - what the hell I don't know the difference (blasphemy!) - track they had)) I was seized with a sudden urge at 2am to play stuff I hadn't listened to in ages.

And, god, I had forgotten how much I love Kingmaker!.


Lucy's Down

I am incredibly late to exploring YouTube properly, and looking for Kingmaker videos makes me realise, why did nobody tell me before it would let me pretend it's Saturday morning sometime in the 1990s and I am watching The Chart Show?

I hate it when work around inequality and oppression is belittled or avoided as "political correctness" and represented as being about mere words and not wanting to cause offence. It's like dynamite being forcibly turned into jelly.

Bendy-buses with the slogan "There's probably no God" could soon be running on the streets of London.

The atheist posters are the idea of the British Humanist Association (BHA) and have been supported by prominent atheist Professor Richard Dawkins.

... The complete slogan reads: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

Professor Dawkins said: "Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride - automatic tax breaks, unearned respect and the right not to be offended, the right to brainwash children.

"Even on the buses, nobody thinks twice when they see a religious slogan plastered across the side.

"This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think - and thinking is anathema to religion."

... But Stephen Green of pressure group Christian Voice said: "Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large.

"I should be surprised if a quasi-religious advertising campaign like this did not attract graffiti.

"People don't like being preached at. Sometimes it does them good, but they still don't like it."

>'No God' slogans for city's buses - BBC News 21/10/2008

I just finished reading this Shakesville post tearing to pieces a Peter Hitchens Daily Mail piece that argues that rape victims who were drunk are to blame for what happened to them and I clicked through to the Daily Mail article itself, and holy fuck is it bad. Anything you hear about the Daily Mail is always worse than you can ever anticipate, that is one of my life lessons.

The title is, I shit not, How the Left censored the blindingly obvious truth about rape. Except he doesn't tell us how the Left did this, his article is all the usual poorly thought out pontification about why being drunk means that women forget that all men are potential rapists. Or at least that's what his logic implies, as one of the Shakesville commenters illustrated:

I can't recommend reading the comments for the Hitchens column; they are mostly (not entirely) full of "sage agreement."

But one comment made me tear up; from someone called Emma: The comments agreeing with peter make me so sad as a young girl. I see now all men want to rape me and are waiting for the moment to do this. This makes me never want to date or marry. Men are all just potential monsters.”

Also from the Shakesville thread, this report from the Independent: The Afghan women jailed for being victims of rape.

10 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

Oh, that's why my delicious links don't post any more.. Sigh, another thing to fix.

Here they are on delicious anyway.

Sorry I've not been around much right now. Just the usual, work and other stuff combining to make me feel like I have no time to spare, and finding focus & energy to get things done seems hard.

I woke up quite early this morning. This usually makes me feel rather perky and together but today it does not. I don't know why. :(

• Overly Helpful Dudes - "If you are one of those guys who asks girls you don’t know if they need help when they’re not obviously in need of it, think through a scenario where you ask a random guy if he needs help. Better yet, go out and actually try it
  
  
  ... If it feels weird even to think about, that’s because you’re sexist. It happens — we live in a patriarchy. We’re all sexist to some extent .... But you should definitely work on that. Try not to ask women if they need help unless they are trul
  
  
  (tags: gender benevolent_sexism men feminism)
  
  


• Sociological Images » Emotions at work "‘THE CUSTOMER IS THE REASON FOR OUR BUSINESS’… Please, Thank Check Writing Customers BY NAME!"
  
  
  " What an amazing example of how employees are required to do emotional labor! First, the employee should refer to them by name if possible, thereby pretending to know them. Second, the employee should be friendly and chat with his or her customers, but o
  
  
  (tags: work)
  
  

• Pasadena Weekly - The elephant in the room: Pathological patriarchy in the post-feminist era
  
  
  Short but informative &pithy article about 70s feminism & consciousness raising and contemporary vilification of feminism
  
  
  (tags: feminism patriarchy consciousness_raising activism history)
  
  


• On resistance to women's organisation in World of Warcraft
  
  
  An all-female guild in WOW gets constant criticism (nb - all female characters, not all female players), general misogyny within WOW, & reasons why male players will/will not play female characters - objectification or inability to imagine being female
  
  
  (tags: feminism misogyny gaming characters gender organising)
  
  

• Oppression -- Marilyn Frye (scan of 1983 essay)
  
  
  "It is a fundamental claim of feminism that women are oppressed. The word "oppression" is a strong word. It repels and attracts. It is dangerous and dangerously fashionable and endangered. It is much misused and sometimes not innocently"
  
  
  (tags: feminism oppression language)